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Writing
Authentically You
How to find & use your voice for the greater good
I love my voice. Not my “tape recorder” voice, but the one I found through hours of filling notebooks with my every whim.
Writers find their own authentic voice through regular dedicated writing practice coupled with permission to write whatever comes out without judgment. Shitty first drafts are better than pristine empty pages.
When my stepmother bought a bitterly angry 8-year-old me a diary from the much-coveted Hello Kitty store in the mall, a door in my heart cracked open with a small sliver of light escaping.
I bought into the faux-security system otherwise known as the little golden lock that came on the plastic tabs. I discovered that in the secret sacred silence of writing pages, I could be me. I didn’t have to dress like the cool kids or worry about my dad’s dreaded “It’s not what you say but how you say it.”
When Hello Kitty diary’s pages were no longer cool, I adopted the spiral notebook. My friend Jules in middle school always knew I’d have that notebook in tow, writing love letters to my crush KTM or filling the pages with poems or rants.
As a young girl my need to chatter nonstop overwhelmed my always busy dad, but on the pages, well, I’d just turn to…